Language and discourse 2
Institutional practices which people draw upon
without thinking often embody assumptions
that…legitimise power relations. Practices which
appear commonsensical can often be shown to
originate in the dominant class…and to have
become naturalized (Fairclough, 2001:27).
Last Class
• Language and ideology
Language and status
Two ways of creating and maintaining
power: --Consent and Coercion
The nature of mass media is often not
clear
There are differences between face-toface interactions: Lack of feedback
Institutional Settings and
Discourse
• Educational, health, judiciary, the media,
etc.
• Transmit and maintain societal structures
• Involves participants separated in place and
time
• Involves hidden power relations
Differences: face-to-face
discourse and media discourse
• 1. One-sided nature of media discourse
--sharp division: producer and audience(
interpreter)
--no room for contestation
• 2. Lack of close interaction in media
discourse
--adaptability of face-to-face discourse
--mass media design for mass audiences
Why do we need to understand
media discourse?
• Influence of media unquestionable
• Construct and reconstruct particular realities
• Aura of partiality of media is deceiving
• Expressed bias: they highlight some items and ignore
others
The assumption of neutrality:
Media Discourse
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TV
Sustained by form and content
Form: familiarity
Familiarity creates a sense of trust
Printed Media
Neutrality by anonymity
Language control: institutional control
Language devices: nouns, verbs, etc
Syntactic Constructions and
Media Discourse
• Agents of actions and subjects
• Example:
--Anna ate a pizza
--The pizza was eaten by Anna
Shifting focus from agent of action to recipient of
action
--The pizza was eaten
Two headlines: The Times and
the Guardian
• RIOTING BLACKS SHOT DEAD BY POLICE AS
ANC LEADERS MEET---Eleven Africans were shot
dead and 15 wounded when Rhodesian police opened
fire on a rioting crowd of about 2,000 in the African
Highfield township of Salisbury this afternoon.
• POLICE SHOOT 11 DEAD IN SALISBURY RIOT---Riot police shot and killed 11 African demonstrators
and wounded 15 others here today in the Highfield
township on the outskirts of Salisbury.
TV, Film
• Similar hidden messages
• Focus on particular topics
• Sounds influences moods
• Organization of images
Summary
• Media discourse designed with mass audiences
in mind: construction of ideal subject
• Involves grammatical constructions, vocabulary
and language
Discussion question
• To what extend are ideologies variable
within a society, and how are such
variations manifested in discourse?
Exercise
• Find articles that relate to:
1. The relationship between language and a
dominant ideology in North america
2. The relationship between language and
power situations